


Carolyn

by mayachain



Series: 14Valentines_2019 [2]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Choices, Community: 14valentines, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Susan Ivanova cameo, What-If, a moon full of telepaths, hypothetical futures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 11:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17621981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: What would happen if Carolyn were freed, Lyta asks herself. She bears a special responsibility for her siblings victimized by the Shadows; who if not her will ask this question?





	Carolyn

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Invaluable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13683693) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain). 



> Soo... no teeps were ever shipped to Earth, right? Right.

The colonization of Iris IV makes all those who know about their existence wonder what would happen if someone ever _did_ discover a way to cure the telepaths mechanized by the Shadows who didn’t perish inside the guts of Earth ships above Mars. A moon full of telepaths with access to the Alliance’s best doctors and Narn scientists with a vested interest in quid-pro-quo _surely_ must eventually find a way?

What would happen if Carolyn were freed, Lyta asks herself. Lyta bears a special responsibility for her siblings victimized by the Shadows. Who if not her will ask this question?

Alfred Bester has done terrible things. He’d already done terrible things when the woman had supposedly fallen in love with him. He has done things that are even more terrible still since.

Bester told Sheridan she had no one but him. The Babylon 5 staff basically treated the vile psi cop as Carolyn Sanderson’s next of kin, but if she were able to speak for herself again, would her current caretakers contact him?

A relationship started inside a re-education centre with Bester being who he was… It’s impossible to know without ever asking the woman herself, but how in love with him could she really have been?

Lyta can’t bring herself to consider the fate of the unborn child.

On Iris IV, it’s rare to bring up a specific telepath that isn’t at least known to _someone_. It’s hardly a surprise that many people know _of_ the rogue P12 C. Sanderson – a young Lyta herself once caught a glimpse of her on Proxima 3 - but nobody seems to really know Carolyn.

She may have had no one but Bester, but if she were convalescing in the free colony among people who by then will have been living outside the Corps for several years… It heartens Lyta that she would have ample opportunities to make new connections.

Knowing her as Bester’s lover might make some of the others uncomfortable. Yet many of them have done terrible things while beholden to the Corps – Lyta, Byron, Alanna, and even gentle Gianin among them. The question has been raised whether Corps-raised Bester himself can really be blamed for becoming as he’s been taught. All who have scanned him have felt the residue of his love for their lost sister Carolyn. Can they still pronounce him beyond redemption?

(When Susan hears of the debate, her hatred is broadcast clearly and widely, fuelled by thoughts of Talia and Michael and acknowledged by everyone.)

Anyway.

Provided she were ever healed, maybe Carolyn would voluntarily go back to Psi Corps and take up her affair with Bester again. Lyta supposes he would have to then do some hefty manoeuvring to save her from a full personality override, but if so, that would be a risk knowingly taken.

Maybe once she learned of all he’s done she would want nothing more to do with him. If told early enough, she might even ask that he not be informed she’d been cured successfully. Lyta finds it hard to imagine that any other Unfrozen would be all that keen to let the Corps know of their fate, so keeping the secret might even be feasible for a time.

Maybe she and Bester would reunite but make their living somewhere else – not with the Corps, not among the Freed. Bester would surely be able to fake his death and have the Corps believe it.Or maybe the man would trick the Corps into believing he’d work to undermine Iris IV from the inside… a nightmare Lyta has already prevented by placing a giant block in his brain in reassurance to everyone who’s ever suffered under him. 

A possibility Lyta likes much better than the thought of Bester and Carolyn making an undeserved living on Iris IV is that Carolyn might make him agree to face trial. Would he have to answer for what he did to other telepaths? To Alanna? To Michael? Susan would like to see him dead but would be satisfied were he locked up for life. A free-of-the-Corps Carolyn would be free to visit him if she so desired. 

Lyta has a hard time picturing Bester humbled by any experience, so she is certain he would find any punishment a nuisance, but if the woman could convince him to turn himself in, she can glimpse a future where he would still be mostly just happy that she was alive. 

There is also a chance that freed from machine symbiosis Carolyn might insist on staying on the colony where the colonists continuously abhor him. Will never tolerate him. Byron believes that in such a scenario Bester might stay with Psi Corps but start politicking for the Corps’ grip to become somewhat less stringent. Without the veiled Shadow influence and without the Clarke regime facilitating their atrocities, with Earth making a turn toward the Alliance, such an endeavor should be easier. Already there are two or three Irisian plants working towards the Corps becoming an _option_ for Earth Alliance telepath children and not the only path outside heavy medication. If he helped them, Bester might even earn himself the right to retire to the colony and live out his life with Carolyn at his side.

If Carolyn so desired.

Lyta’s favored outcome, however, is one Alanna stipulates on a night under the stars spent in amity: One where Carolyn makes a completely new life for herself. Whether she would finally be in a position to assert that she never wanted to be with Bester in the first place, or the two would simply turn out no longer compatible as lovers… _This_ Carolyn might connect instead with a fellow survivor. Someone else out of touch with those that mourned them years ago, who could understand all she has gone through.

For both in hypotheticals involving stasis units and real lives playing out right now, Lyta has gathered one fundamental truth: Telepathy makes sharing trauma easier. It is still anything but a magic cure.

 

.


End file.
